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Internet Dating Scams Target Older American Women
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports: "Janet N. Cook, a church secretary in Virginia, had been a widow for a decade when she joined an Internet dating site and was quickly overcome by a rush of emails, phone calls and plans for a face-to-face visit. "I'm not stupid, but I was totally naïve," says Cook, now 76, who was swept off her feet by a man who called himself Kelvin Wells and described himself as a middle-aged German businessman looking for someone "confident" and "outspoken" to travel with him to places like Italy, his "dream destination." But very soon he began describing various troubles, including being hospitalized in Ghana, where he had gone on business, and asked Cook to bail him out. In all, she sent him nearly $300,000, as he apparently followed a well-honed script that online criminals use to bilk members of dating sites out of tens of millions of dollars a year."
According to the Times internet scammers are targeting women in their 50s and 60s, often retired and living alone, who say that the email and phone wooing forms a bond that may not be physical but that is intense and enveloping. Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2014, nearly 6,000 people registered complaints of such confidence fraud with losses of $82.3 million, according to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center. Older people are ideal targets because they often have accumulated savings over a lifetime, own their homes and are susceptible to being deceived by someone intent on fraud. The digital version of the romance con is now sufficiently widespread that AARP's Fraud Watch Network has urged online dating sites to institute more safeguards to protect against such fraud. The AARP network recommends that dating site members use Google's "search by image" to see if the suitor's picture appears on other sites with different names. If an email from "a potential suitor seems suspicious, cut and paste it into Google and see if the words pop up on any romance scam sites," the network advised. The website romancescams.org lists red flags to look for to identify such predators, who urgently appeal to victims for money to cover financial setbacks like unexpected fines, money lost to robbery or unpaid wages. Most victims say they are embarrassed to admit what happened, and they fear that revealing it will bring derision from their family and friends, who will question their judgment and even their ability to handle their own financial affairs."It makes me sound so stupid, but he would be calling me in the evening and at night. It felt so real. We had plans to go to the Bahamas and to Bermuda together," says Louise Brown. "When I found out it was a scam, I felt so betrayed. I kept it secret from my family for two years, but it's an awful thing to carry around. But later I sent him a message and said I forgave him."
According to the Times internet scammers are targeting women in their 50s and 60s, often retired and living alone, who say that the email and phone wooing forms a bond that may not be physical but that is intense and enveloping. Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2014, nearly 6,000 people registered complaints of such confidence fraud with losses of $82.3 million, according to the federal Internet Crime Complaint Center. Older people are ideal targets because they often have accumulated savings over a lifetime, own their homes and are susceptible to being deceived by someone intent on fraud. The digital version of the romance con is now sufficiently widespread that AARP's Fraud Watch Network has urged online dating sites to institute more safeguards to protect against such fraud. The AARP network recommends that dating site members use Google's "search by image" to see if the suitor's picture appears on other sites with different names. If an email from "a potential suitor seems suspicious, cut and paste it into Google and see if the words pop up on any romance scam sites," the network advised. The website romancescams.org lists red flags to look for to identify such predators, who urgently appeal to victims for money to cover financial setbacks like unexpected fines, money lost to robbery or unpaid wages. Most victims say they are embarrassed to admit what happened, and they fear that revealing it will bring derision from their family and friends, who will question their judgment and even their ability to handle their own financial affairs."It makes me sound so stupid, but he would be calling me in the evening and at night. It felt so real. We had plans to go to the Bahamas and to Bermuda together," says Louise Brown. "When I found out it was a scam, I felt so betrayed. I kept it secret from my family for two years, but it's an awful thing to carry around. But later I sent him a message and said I forgave him."
Much as hate to appear victim-blaming, even an utter polyanna-style naïvette would've ended at $3,000. Beyond that, it is stupidity.
"He" (and am not at all sure, there is an identifiable "he" to this scam — more likely a work of an enterprise) is a crook and should be hung alive by his rib on a rusty hook. But, boy, the lady is stupid...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
For $300,000 he could have gone to Italy with her, kept the rest and it wouldn't even have been fraud...
Or, she could have gone to Italy alone and hired a professional gigolo there and it wouldn't have been fraud either.
"Not stupid?" To the contrary, extremely stupid. When you want to believe something so badly that you throw all caution to the wind, giving strangers all your money, you are dumb. Not naive. Dumb and desperate. The worst part is that when friends and family point out how its obviously a catfish, the victim turns on them and not the scammer
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
That's a long con that has been in existence since the very first newspaper introduced a dating column.
Flimflam people have computers too.
including being hospitalized in Ghana
EJECT EJECT EJECT
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I hope to christ i have 300 grand to fritter away when i'm in my 70s
Erm, americans, that is!
I guess 10-20 years in prisson is the right penalty! Or death penalty! After all wistle blowers and some script kiddies are threatened the same! ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
A hundred years ago women were living within their families and divorces were rare.
They had to live in a family with a husband. The only other option was to live at home with their parents.
Now men and women can live comfortable lives alone, so they do, but then realize that being "forced" together for financial reasons brought human interaction, which is pretty important.
It's just one of those pendulum swings and we're on our way back to the middle.
The following quote is the only part of the TFA that specifically mentions that older women are being targeted by romance scammers.
Many of those targeted are women, especially women in their 50s and 60s, often retired and living alone, who say that the email and phone wooing forms a bond that may not be physical but that is intense and enveloping. How many people are snared by Internet romance fraud is unclear...
The rest of article, aside from the quotes from women who've been scammed, deals with victims in the general sense, not specifically women. No statistics are given at all about the demographics of people who have been scammed, just that "many" of the targeted are older women (well, duh. Older folk in general are most often the targets of swindlers).
It could be that older women are targeted more, but I doubt its by a substantial amount. Who knows? There's no stats quoted in teh article. A better article would put forward the premise that "Internet Dating Scams Target Older Folk" and leave the gender specific angle out of it.
Naive is believing that a German businessman who travels to locales like Ghana would describe traveling to Italy as his dream destination, like it's something to aspire to as an adventure, when it's about like driving from Florida to Pennsylvania in distance. Stupid is when you believe that this man could rack up a bill in Ghana that would be a major medical scandal in the US (where hospitals don't even blink at bilking people in many areas) and then blindly start throwing that much money at him.
Hint #1
If the person you are talking to changes their location to somewhere in West Africa IT'S A SCAM
Hint #2
If the person you are talking to asks for money IT'S A SCAM
Internet dating is for cows. .. Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!
Indeed -- and anonymously trolling message boards is of course reserved for the highly intelligent and most evolved member of the human race. Thank you, sir.
(I can't believe this got "insightful" moderation already!)
Ironically, Ms Cook is "a church secretary".
:-)
Now where do those "how to meet a man" articles always tell you to look for your true love? Right you are: on the Internet
At least the know how of being able to woo a lady...
Man, I am 30 and still not even a girlfriend.
Old people in general are more susceptible to scams. I remember a story awhile back that a university professor fell for a dating scam where someone pretended to be a model. He was an accomplished physicist. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03...
I'm not sure what to do with that information, but this lady wasn't an isolated incident. The entire population of old people as a whole are more susceptible.
to get her from the Soviet Union, i ordered her on my new Windows 95 computer for 20 dollars, she said she was packing her bags and catching the next steam ship to america, i hope she hurries up because i am sure getting tired of waiting
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I just turned 40 and am a happily married guy, so I haven't been "on the market" lately. But, I do know a lot of people, men and women, who are increasingly desperate and affected with the "urge to merge." $300K is excessive, and I think most reasonable people would have seen the light sooner. But I can definitely see this demographic being a good target for con artists. This guy even pushed the Italy button -- what lovesick middle aged woman doesn't dream of some crazy Tuscan romance fantasy?
That said, things are different now and it is harder for older people to find suitable partners -- they're fishing in a dwindling pool full of:
- Unpleasant, bitter divorcees who have had their personalities permanently ruined
- The unmarryable -- men and women -- who haven't been able to attract anyone due to serious flaws of one kind or another
- The permanently single -- aka the creepy 55 year old guy still hitting on women in the bar with no intention of settling down or even being honest
Every woman around my age mentions this as their problem. Some might say they're being too picky, but I definitely see their point. If your choices are limited, and someone suddenly comes along who isn't a player, doesn't live in Mom's basement, and isn't an RMS clone, I could see being very vulnerable.
That's nearly $14k per woman/victim. Where do I get me a cougar sugar momma?
Your turn will come one day when you have made a terrible mistake. Karma says that when you are tricked and taken, you will get the same sympathy from others as you have given out.
That's nearly $14k per woman/victim. Where do I get me a cougar sugar momma?
Fuck you you piece of shit. That is exactly the thinking that leads people to do this, and to engage in human trafficking, gun-running, etc...
Humans are great at rationalizing crime. "Of course it's too bad these people are getting taken advantage of by me," they say, "but it's not like there's a better option."
It seems like thesekind of people are still alive and well.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
But the interesting aspects are the age groups and the sales pitch.
You have young women who also get inundated with messages, but the power differential is reversed, and are more likely to be conning themselves (several beautiful women who have fallen on hard times, and if you could only see your way to some generosity...).
And of course appealing to the vanity of women that some rich businessman is interested in them to lead a jet-setting lifestyle. Interesting that the only description of the man is rich.
Reads like those would-be manipulators got manipulated instead. Not really sympathetic towards them.
Seriously, these scams go both ways. I just heard a 27 year old man talking to my 14 year old on Skype, with the speakers on, saying that "Ohh, you wanted to go to that Anime con in Indiana? I'd cover that!"
I had to have a long talk with her about what exactly was going on, where she sais "I know him" and I had to point out "I don't". The scam of "sex for money" goes both ways: I'm not sure which of them was proposing what, and I *don't care*, it was an obvious older guy funding out of state hobbies for an underage girl.
And if that happens, I'll deserve the same scorn. Unless the woman is senile (and thus, her caregivers should be prosecuted for allowing this to happen), she is stupid, as the other guy said.
Not racist to keep them out if you keep out all the whites and browns too. Just say "fuck all foreigners!", and it's no longer racist, just xenophobic.
She gets my sympathy, and she didn't deserve it, but handing out 300k to a stranger, nay even 1k to a stranger you have never met and only have some chat messages and emails as a basis for knowing is in fact, the absolute definition of cognitive disfunction. The simplest category of cognitive disfunction, without further information, is labeled "stupidity"
As a single guy in my late 30s, I would bang a 70-year old if I got 300k a year for it.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Given the current political, social, and economic situation in the USA, what you called 'xenophobic' I call 'reasonable.'
Or maybe they have realized that a dog is the only love that money can buy ... same as many men, I suspect.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I use it because I work really messed up hours, and I barely have any other activities that I do outside of work. I'm not a social shut in, I like to go to electronic music events and festivals, and I meet tons of cool people there, just nobody I would ever find to be dating material.
Hmmm, maybe that is why most women don't hang around when they find out I still like to go out to shows.
Been awhile since I've seen a post reminding me of GNAA (thanks /.)
I've been meaning to watch that movie because I heard how bad it was. Like a trainwreck happening over the course of 45 minutes.
Couldn't she have used match.com? eharmony? Any number of other dating sites?
Meanwhile, internet dating scams targeting men have always existed, but don't seem to garner nearly the same media attention as those targeting women. Maybe because people just accept it as part of the 'reality of the internet'?
[Single photo of extremely attractive woman, poor use of English, etc, etc]..
One could argue that online dating sites themselves are scams targeting men, given the unfavorable gender-ratios involved.
Well she responded to a troll post, and I have no sympathy for that. Laughed out loud actually.
The problem is that at the beginning of senility, when the person is trying to hide it (from themselves as much as anyone), there are no care givers. My Mom managed to go through a few hundred thousand dollars just before she was diagnosed as senile. Where the money went, we don't know though we have suspicions about her neighbour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Your turn will come one day when you have made a terrible mistake. Karma says that when you are tricked and taken, you will get the same sympathy from others as you have given out.
Sounds like acceptable terms to me. Don't get me wrong, I know I've been tricked for hundreds of dollars by a flim-flam artist but even then I got a nice but overpriced suit out of it. Recently I sold a boat and already at thousands of dollars I was thinking this is big money, make sure I don't get scammed or that they're just some mental case with no money. A car for tens of thousands I'd make doubly sure, a house for hundreds of thousands triply sure.
Life is too short to verify everything all the time in the greatest detail possible, sometimes you're taken for a ride, but it has to be proportional to the investment. It's one thing to buy a "Rolex" for $100 where you both know it's not the real thing as opposed to buying a Rolex for $10000 thinking you got a good deal. On a long stretch, maybe I could get talked into paying for a plane ticket to meet though I'd order it myself and not as a cash transfer. But this? No, if I ever get this mentally retarded just put me out of my misery.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The problem is that at the beginning of senility, when the person is trying to hide it (from themselves as much as anyone), there are no care givers. My Mom managed to go through a few hundred thousand dollars just before she was diagnosed as senile. Where the money went, we don't know though we have suspicions about her neighbour.
Could have been a church too. I have a few relatives that bypassed their families, and gave their entire estate to some scam-o church. Reverend PeeWee Cutchakockoff needs all the help he can get in doing God's work via his ministry. Daddy needs a new jet too. Praise the Lawd!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
AFAIAC, the worst part is that these people vote.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
While I'm sure Church scams are common (just have to turn on the TV on Sunday), my Mom was totally non-religious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I am still young and shrewd. But I have been single all my life and no kids, with no prospects (I am not an asshole, just plain-looking, bad at romance, frustrated with the singles I have met, and emotionally capable of being alone).
So...when senility starts to kick in for me....who can I trust to manage my affairs? I have many friends, and a few close friends, who are in the same boat as I am. I can't rely on them though, as they will become senile at about the same time I will. Where do I find non-senile and shrewd people that I can actually trust to put my needs first when deciding how to spend my money for me?
Could have been a church too. I have a few relatives that bypassed their families,
Bypassing one's family in a last will and testament is not necessarily a mark of senility.
Sometimes it is a mark of sanity.
Internet dating is for people who don't have the social skills to meet people and engage in more than a nod or good morning in passing. The same people who don't know their next door neighbors and then complain they have nobody to talk to. Getting out and actually doing something, which would help address the problem, is too outside their comfort zone due to lack of practice. I predict a rise in similar scams targeted at the aging male programmer population who think they'll never fall for it.
Your view is painfully naive, shallow, and uninformed. For many people, "getting out and actually doing something" is a pretty crappy way of meeting people to date. If your ideal date is... well... someone just like you, it's fantastic. Otherwise, not so much.
I'm very social as well as involved in my community, but the aspects of community involvement I like as well as most of my hobbies tend to be things other guys like, not other women. Because of my job, I live in primarily family oriented areas where most people are married. I go out a couple times a week and it's always with married couples or just the guys. Single women in my age range are needles in the proverbial haystack.
Internet dating has been a godsend in meeting people in neighboring areas with different interests and different social circles. Internet dating is a tool. It's a shame you feel the need to denigrate others just because you don't know how to use it.
Who the fuck cares that the dumb bitch sends complete strangers money and then complains. Fuck her.
Could have been a church too. I have a few relatives that bypassed their families,
Bypassing one's family in a last will and testament is not necessarily a mark of senility.
Sometimes it is a mark of sanity.
It is when you replace them with an even more greedy bloodsucking group of people (i.e. a church).
So what does this say about our society that there are troves of older lonely American women. I'd say it means that it means we are fed unrealistic expectations about relationship and marriage prospects. A Cinderella fantasy causes a girl to squander her youth and good looks. If she finally "settles" for a man who is merely her equal, she feels shortchanged. The ones who are left alone are still so easily lured into the fairy tale fantasy that this has become a treasure trove for fraudsters. So in a nutshell, because of unrealistic expectations, American women have made themselves a bad long term investment, and the only ones who are interested in investing are the scammers or the stupid.
> Most victims say they are embarrassed to admit what happened, and they fear that revealing it will bring derision from their family and friends, who will question their judgment and even their ability to handle their own financial affairs.
Far be it from me to criticize mentally frail senior citizens, but doesn't sending $300,000 to some random scammer absolutely prove an abundant lack of ability to handle one's own financial affairs?
It's actually amusing. I laughed a few times at the way it parodied dodgy horror movies and fears of homophobes. I mean, come on, they have names like Sgt Shaved Balls and Cpt B. Dick. The representation of oppressive, evil "female creatures" is pretty funny, too.
Italy? "Dream vacation"? Seriously, have you ever been there? Everything's filthy, prices are outrageous, service is crap and it's chock-full of shit niggers pissing and shitting everywhere. Italy is a shithole. Only stupid Americans who have only seen it in movies and TV shows with Croatian towns doubling as Italian could be fooled into spending money there. You want the same experience? Get to the worst area of your city and stroll about for a while, preferably under the sun. Then come home sweating like a pig after being almost mugged by a dozen shit niggers (if you're lucky). Then check some pretty pictures of art stuff on the Net. And that's the whole Italy experience for you.
I agree with you in the bloodsucking part, however you did not get the message. It is when bypassing them is giving them the ultimate middle finger...from the grave. Why do we have to spell it out everything for slashdot people...?...I wonder.
Moderating him +1 insightful was the joke(Him failing as a troll as always), you insensitive clod.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
"lacking intelligence or common sense."
It is definitely common sense not to send $300,000 to a person one has never met face-to-face who claims to be taken ill in Ghana.
Sorry, that is almost a textbook example of lack of common sense, and therefore qualifies as S T U P I D
...it was a couple years back. Met this girl online, real nice, pretty photo, all that jazz. She got real close real quick--quick enough that I started doing a little research on the side. Like when she said her brother had died of cancer, and the only person I could find with that name had died in a drive-by. Then she lowered the boom: she was stuck in a hotel in London, her finances from the family business had some sort of snarl-up, and she couldn't leave until she got money to pay the bill.
A-ha.
I played ignorant at first, not quite taking the hint when she asked for help. When she gave up on subtlety, I plead poverty, but wished her all the luck in the world and told her to get in touch once she got out of there.
Never heard back. Funny thing, that.
Women have to decide if they want to be either Adults or large children . If the former they have to own up to their mistakes like the rest of us.
To get the NSA, CIA, XXX and others on this, all one has to do is say the magic words: This is how the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda are funded.
OK, now that it's not longer just fraud, but terrorism, maybe somebody will go single payer on these guys.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
I use it because I work really messed up hours, and I barely have any other activities that I do outside of work. I'm not a social shut in, I like to go to electronic music events and festivals, and I meet tons of cool people there, just nobody I would ever find to be dating material.
I had considered trying it for reasons like this, women who share many of my interests are simply hard to find if you don't already travel in the same circles and when you do come across them they're usually already taken. Plus not everyone wears their interests on the sleeve so you might be running into such people often but it never comes up in conversation, especially if you know them only casually. One good thing about social media is that it has made it easier for like to find like.
You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!
Or it could be that some people don't want to date bar flies or people in their existing social circle. The world is a big place and if there's a tool out there to make the process easier, who cares. I met my wife of several years via online dating. Would I have come across her otherwise? Based on our social circles, the clubs we were in and the places we hung out at - all signs point to no.
Just older women? Shouldn't older men be easy targets too..but yes perhaps they won't transfer $300,000 for nothing; therein maybe lies a difference.
The problem is that at the beginning of senility, when the person is trying to hide it (from themselves as much as anyone), there are no care givers.
The problem is that there's no middle ground in our system between sane and nutbag, and we as a society tend to treat people who have the least mental deficiency like pets. People with any sort of physical deformity or other handicap are treated at minimum as well as anyone else, but we can still look down on the mentally unwell and infirm and mock them with some impunity.
If we can learn not to dehumanize people with mental problems, maybe they'll stop hiding them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The last line in the summary is powerful
"But later I sent him a message and said I forgave him"
I witnessed a check cashing "room mate" deposit scam happening before. A lady I don't really know was on the phone in our van pool talking to her bank trying to setup a wire transfer to someone that she was considering as a room mate. The bank would not do it unless she went to a branch office. She was frustrated and explaining to CS person the urgency with getting that wire transfer done. After she hung up I really wanted not to get involved but it was hard not too. I eventually apologized for listening and asked her if this person sent her a check for more than what she asked for and was she taking a cut and sending the remaining money back, she said yes, how did you know.
I spent 15 minutes trying to explain to her in a the most non demeaning and nice way I could she was about to be fucked over. She would not believe me, mentioned that she has been emailing this person back and forth for 2 months and that person need the wire transfer to get her stuff out of storage before she can move in and so on. She was flying in next week to actually move in and waiting for this wire transfer etc..
As I dug deeper, she finally started to piece the things together and realize I might be right. She said, I feel like going to the airport next week when she gets her and telling her off. In a nice way I said, you can try that but doubt anyone is actually even flying here. That is when it sank in for her.
Somehow I expected better from you Barbara. Did you forget that some groups in society don't have the luxury of being able to openly seek a partner without having to worry about ridicule and/or violence? Internet dating can provide a safe(r) way for people to meet, and is immensely helpful for those who are still just a bit nervous about themselves.
Bypassing one's family in a last will and testament is not necessarily a mark of senility.
Sometimes it is a mark of sanity.
It is when you replace them with an even more greedy bloodsucking group of people (i.e. a church).
I had a rich uncle who managed to control his family and extended family by threatening to take them out of his will. Most KowTowed to his demands - greed is that way. They'd get their reward when he kicked
When he tried to pull that shit with me, I told him to keep his money, I'll make my own.
When he died, he left everything but a pittance for his wife, to an estranged son (no longer estranged, only came back into his life in the last year of his life) who promptly donated it to his church.
That was the bad news. The good news was watching the faces of the people who kissed my uncle's ass for years when the will was read, and then didn't get a dime. In the end, they got their just reward, and so did I.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Did you even read what I wrote? Or was that just a convenient place to hang your remark? If that's the case, never mind, carry on. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
According to the VA, the proper classification is "mental defective".
Cheap storage VM.
As a depressive, I agree with much of what you're saying.
However, I don't know how it applies to this situation. We have a woman with perhaps a touch of senility who throws money at a guy who sounds good. How do we stop her? Either she has control over her own money or she doesn't, and that's where there is no middle ground. If her family (say) wants to restrict her activities, they have to either talk her into it or get a court to declare incompetence.
The guy I know who had major surgery to remove cancer in his hip wound up physically restricted, but nobody was questioning his ability to make decisions for himself. A woman with the beginnings of senility is likely to realize, on some level, that her control over her surroundings is going to go away, and may want to keep that control as long as possible.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There are many organisations far more worthy of the money, I can understand giving family members the finger. But why not do so in a constructive manner, their are good charities and causes out their, no need to flush it down the shitter by giving it to church. Hell I would understand leaving it to a pet dog or cat better than the church,.
It is a case of dog bites man.